Monday, July 5, 2021

Lorain Contractor Builds City’s First Bomb Shelter – July 1951

Civil Defense has been a regular topic on this blog since its launching in 2009. 

Why do I find it interesting? Because I was born at the end of the 1950s and civil defense was still very much on the minds of Lorain’s citizens. 

I’ve mentioned many times how my parents came very close to building a fallout shelter in our backyard in collaboration with some neighbors.

Anyway, I’ve devoted many posts to civil defense as a topic, including (and most recently) a 1956 comic book featuring “Mr. Civil Defense” (with a cameo by Al Capp’s beloved Li’l Abner character); Lorain’s air raid signal test (May 1951) as well as a new civil defense siren (May 1954); Lorain’s Civil Defense tower that used to sit behind the old City Hall; a 1968 Emergency handbook; a 1961 Fallout Protection book; and two September 1961 articles about area fallout shelters (here and here).

Well, here’s another article about Lorain’s preparation for a nuclear attack. This one is pretty interesting, because it features Sam Pavlovich, a contractor who apparently built “Lorain’s first atom bomb shelter.” 

The article ran in the Lorain Journal back on July 2, 1951.

It’s interesting that the article points out that “The shelters are being built, not because customers have ordered them, but because Pavlovich thinks it is time someone took some precautions.”

How big was the shelter he was building at the time of the Journal article? The article notes, “Approximately five feet by 11, it has ample space to accommodate an average family, according to its designers.”
As for construction, Pavlovich was “insulating his bomb room with concrete on all sides, installing a steel door opening onto the basement and a steel-shielded window for ventilation. The window will serve as an exit, if necessary, in case the door is blocked by the ruins of the home collapsing into the basement.” A cheery thought indeed.
What’s really interesting is that the article provides an address for the home Pavlovich was working on at that time: 2112 W. 11th Street. According to the article, the shelter “lies under the front porch in order to get topside protection from the porch’s concrete floor.”
I wonder if the family living there now knows about the bit of Lorain history right under their front porch?

10 comments:

  1. I'm reminded of something that I found out about forty years ago, in a magazine article.
    Evidently, Cleveland's Civil Defense Manual instructed citizens to evacuate westward, towards Lorain, while the Lorain Manual advised an eastern evacuation, towards Cleveland. Perhaps we were supposed to throw one last wing-ding in Avon Lake...

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  2. Clever and funny observation!

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  3. I doubt today's average family would fit into a 5x11 room. I could barely get my fat ass in there :)

    However, I did rent a house in the 80's or maybe early 90's (822 W 14th) that had a concrete room under the front of the house that clearly didn't seem to match the footprint of the 1st floor. I don't remember any steel doors or windows specifically, but it was surely added on after initial construction. I always thought it was a fruit cellar or creepy embalming chamber or something.

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  4. The house I lived in on Nebraska Avenue in the 1990s had a small, dark, creepy room with wooden shelves that was directly under the concrete patio. When it rained, water would dribble in. Somehow I managed to track down the original owners of the house (built in the early 1940s) who told me it was their root cellar. It was perpetually wet in there and we had a dehumidifier running constantly.

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  5. I live in this house and always thought it was just a cold room that's what I just called it

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    1. Thanks for your kindness I hope you can change the window for an escape door in case the front door is covered with debris you can get out you are so lucky to have a bomb shelter and not any the FIRST ONE in Lorain thank you very much for having received me

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  6. Last week here in Lorain we where hit by a strong storm and tornado warnings that makes me go looking for a underground shelter trying to find online for a contractor I found this article and walaaaa my house it's just 3 min from that house so I drive for curiosity and the bomb shelter is still there the current owner of the house, a very kind lady Linda did not know the purpose of that space, currently it has a small window covering the emergency exit, she only called it the cold room I was so excited WOW HISTORY NEVER DIES..... ALEX My Friend 4403202065.

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  7. My house is supposed to have a bomb shelter in it I'm not sure if that's just a cold room or that bomb shelters underneath that cold room or at least part

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  8. Now that I look at that room that I call a cold room I think the bomb shelter might be under that cold room but anyways it's just interesting to know that you have a bomb shelter under your house.

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  9. Thank the gentleman Alex for letting me know about the bomb shelter underneath my porch I did go and look and it is there.

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